Re: Nomination question: Redhat
On Sun, Dec 13, 1998 at 04:27:29PM -0800, Jim Pick wrote:
> > As for Alan being more than a kernel hacker, what more is he? What makes
> > him so special that the distribution that hired him is so much better
> > than everyone else? He can code? A lot of people can code.
>
> >From what I gather, Alan Cox is his own independent company (Building
> #3), who's primary client is Red Hat. Effectively, he works for Red
> Hat. He works out of Wales, whereas Red Hat is based in North
> Carolina. I get the impression that he has free reign to do pretty
> well anything he wants that is Linux-related. It's very good work if
> you can get it.
I know of Alan's work, and yeah it's pretty good stuff.
> If you look at what he does ( http://www.linux.org.uk/diary.html ),
> you'll see he actually spends very little of his time doing Red Hat
> stuff. Mostly it's generic Linux stuff (ie. stable kernel releases).
> He's working for us as much as he is for Red Hat. I think you'll find
> that he's always been very open and responsive to Debian's concerns.
I hate to turn words around, but this is all the more example of why what
he does for Redhat doesn't matter all that much.
> Nobody can question his almost supernatural kernel hacking abilities -
> he's essentially the #2 Linux guy behind Linus. Not a bad guy to have
> in your arsenal if you are a Linux distribution and have a
> multi-million dollar business. If we were in the proprietary software
> business, I'd be concerned if the other team had him on their side.
> Luckily, we aren't. Perhaps that's why Microsoft tried to hire him?
I was especially amused how he answered them. =>
--
"Shall we play a game?" -- WOPR
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